A New Era

Paul Hurst will take his place in the home dugout at Portman Road in front of a crowd full of excitement, passion and togetherness when Ipswich host Blackburn on Saturday.

Although the first game of the season usually portrays these emotions from the fans of any team, I think the fact that Ipswich fans, myself included, are showing them with such abundance is a big shock.

The fans have spent the best part of 18 months bickering between each other about the situation regarding the previous manager Mick McCarthy for numerous reasons, mainly the style of play. When it was announced McCarthy would leave his post at the end of March, the divide looked like it would be around for a while.

However, with the new season about to begin, it seems that divide has been fixed and Town fans are as one again and ready for the new era to begin.

But how has this happened and what does it mean for Ipswich in the coming season?

Marcus Evans has to take a fair amount of credit for fixing the tattered relationship. Not always in Town fans good books, and fairly so at times, this summer he set about repairing the relationship with the club and the fans and has done a superb job.

It started with his first on-screen interview that finally meant that after 10 years, we knew what the owner sounded like! Although the interview was conducted by the club, he made sure that the questions he answered were ones that the fans wanted to hear and that was the first step.

He then appointed Paul Hurst after a long and thorough recruiting process that lasted over 2 months. Something of an unknown before last year, Paul Hurst had just had a hugely successful season at Shrewsbury, guiding them to the play-off final when they were one of the favourites for relegation.

It was clear that this man was top of Evans list. He waited until Shrewsbury’s campaign had come to a close before approaching them regarding Hurst, despite this meaning he missed out on another top target, Jack Ross, to Sunderland.

Since Hurst’s appointment on the 30th May, it’s been clear that this is a man most Town fans wanted to see. A young, hungry manager who has a style of play that is exciting and fun to watch. Someone with a good knowledge of the lower leagues that can utilise that area of the transfer market. Ipswich aren’t going to be spending £8 million on a new striker or £5 million on a new defender, it’s just not going to happen, so a manager who has come up through the pyramid and has a wider knowledge of players from those leagues is always going to please the fans.

Friendlies against Braintree, Crawley, Barnet and MK Dons were all used as games to become more accustomed to this different way of playing and the home friendly against West Ham was a chance for Hurst to showcase this and to show fans what they can expect from this team he is building. And I think it’s safe to say they were impressed. Despite losing 2-1, new signings Ellis Harrison, from Bristol Rovers, and Gwion Edwards, from Peterborough, were impressive. The former getting Ipswich’s goal.

More pleasing was the performance of the three academy graduates in the centre of midfield. Flynn Downes, Andre Dozzell and Tristan Nydam, all 19 years old, showed maturity beyond their years against a powerful West Ham midfield containing former England international Jack Wilshere. Any football fan loves to see an academy graduate come through the ranks and make it to the first team and these three certainly look like doing that this season.

All of this means Ipswich are very much starting fresh in the coming season. The club is full of new faces (and hopefully a few more by the time the transfer window closes!), the fans are singing as one and most importantly, everyone is excited to get to Portman Road again.

We’ve signed players from lower leagues that all have something to prove and will want to show they are capable of performing in the Championship, a league that it is getting increasingly difficult to get out of each season. It’s a recruitment policy that has worked in the past for other teams including an example Ipswich fans know all too well with Norwich doing it to go from League 1 to the Premier League in the blink of an eye. That’s not to say it will be the same for us but it’s proof that it can be done.

I personally have no idea how this season is going to go. It could go horribly wrong and we end up relegated. Similarly, it could all click together and we make a real push for the play-offs.

I just don’t know. And that what is exciting me most this season, the unknown. The unknown players and the unknown manager in a league we, by now, know very well indeed.

Follow on twitter - @CraigBolger

EFL MARATHONS & THE BURDEN OF HISTORY

The EFL Championship has been talked up in recent years as the biggest and best non-top-flight league in world football. This is based partly on finances, but also on its aggregate attendances which place it third in European football, behind the Premier League and the Bundesliga, but ahead of Serie A (Italy), La Liga (Spain) and Ligue 1 (France). Statistics can, of course, be twisted to argue all manner of things, as every politician knows only too well. In recent years, the German 2 Bundesliga has seen higher average gates than the Championship. [1] However, given the 18 club format of German’s second division, it means that 306 league matches are played each season, compared to the EFL figure of 552. This vast difference ensures that the EFL can make claims which are, arguably, misleading.

Nevertheless, it is easy to argue justifiably that the Championship is the hardest second division in major footballing countries. The sheer size of our second tier ensures that its clubs endure an unforgiving marathon season, with plenty of Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday encounters in the congested calendar. Add in the rigid transfer windows and you can sympathise with Mick McCarthy for the major injury crisis which hit Portman Road last season. To further complicate matters, the play-off system then adds a sprint at the end of this marathon. I am not a fan of it, although many would argue that it has now been in operation for a generation and that every club knows the rules before a ball is kicked back in August. [2] For the finalists, this adds another three matches to the gruelling schedule, making it only one short of fifty, even before you add in at least two cup competitions.

Putting attendances, schedules and finances to one side, there is a far better way to justify the unique status of the EFL Championship. Let us take the make-up for the 2018-19 season as an example. Of the twenty-four clubs taking part, all but one have competed in the top flight of English football. OK, this is not exactly an earth-shattering statistic. However, ten of these clubs have been crowned as English champions, two as kings of Europe. Between them, the current Championship boasts twenty-five top-flight titles, thirty-seven FA Cups, twenty-two League Cups and four major European titles. That constitutes an impressive array of honours.

While a club such as Rotherham would probably view a place in Championship football as success in itself, the vast majority of fans view the league as a waiting room to the Promised Land, something which Paul Hurst hinted at on his appointment at Portman Road. [3] On one level, this is understandable. The Championship boasts eleven grounds with 30,000 + capacities and nine venues saw healthy average gates of 25,000 + in the 2017-18 campaign. It is not just fans in Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds who feel that their club ‘deserves’ to be in the Premier League. How many Ipswich Town supporters are content to be simply proud of the fact that the Blues have remained in the top two divisions for the past sixty years? We should be. Instead, fans bemoan the club’s record – aka sterile – stay in the second tier since 2002. History suggests that clubs like Wigan, Hull and Reading are punching above their weight in the second tier, but try telling that to their supporters who have all tasted the Premier League.

Did the creation of the Premier League in 1992 change fans’ perception of the second tier? Certainly the vast wealth which awaits clubs in the top tier has affected the way players, managers and club owners view the divide. This has been exasperated by the controversial (and colossal) parachute payments which reward failure in the Premier League. Has the rebranding of the second tier as the Championship, in 2004, helped add a sense of competing in the top flight of the EFL? Not really. Most supporters would prefer a season of struggle in the top tier to relative success in the second division.

Top flight history, it would appear, brings with it a burden. At Portman Road, the statues and stands of Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson look on, reminding us all of golden ages in which ITFC not only competed with the big clubs, but frequently bettered them. In Suffolk, as elsewhere, supporters and club owner await the manager who will take them back to the land of milk and honey. Perhaps we should be proud that at Portman Road the patience – as well as the wait – lasts a little longer. [4]

© Rodney Marshall

1.      In 2016-17 Championship crowds averaged 20,130 compared to 2 Bundesliga’s 21,717. 2 Bundesliga attendances had been higher in the previous campaign as well.
2.      I would argue that it artificially keeps alive the campaign for mid-table clubs and is particularly cruel when a club finishes the League campaign well ahead of the three clubs below it.
3.      ‘I’ve got to… look to move us forward and help get us to where we all want to be – the Promised Land, as they say.’ (Paul Hurst, 30/05/2018)
4.      No doubt Mick McCarthy would question this suggestion.

Thoughts For The Season.

#ANewEra – The term couldn’t be better suited to what lies ahead for the next 12 months as a town fan. As a 21 year old, ready to hit 22, I cannot really claim about any glory days as a fan. The near misses in the play-offs against the Hammers in 2004 and 2005 were arguably the better times over the last 16 years I’ve followed town, with the play-offs in May 2015 being sandwiched between the stagnation that myself and many of our fans have had to endure in this forever increasingly difficult league.

I don’t want to touch too much on Paul Hurst’s predecessor, but this summer transfer window and the shake-up are just what the club needed. The signings of Edwards and Harrison for a combined fee of £1.45m is a breath of fresh air. Hungry lower league players ready to make a step up, and both of whom have already caught the eye, rather than the expected loans and freebies that we were so used to just filling a round hole as a square peg.

I read Hurst’s interview with Stuart Watson earlier and (yes I’m going to say it again) it was another breath of fresh air. No nonsense, says it exactly how it is, but all within the best interest of fans, players and his staff. He talked about his family and his upbringing and how its all implemented his career and how he does what he does now. Did we get that with the previous man in charge? Maybe a little bit to being with.

Expectations are still yet to be set by town fans, however once again everyone and their dog has written us off to go down. The same being said for Hurst’s previous side Shrewsbury last season, and look what happened? Do I expect an immediate transition? No, but I do expect to see things fit into place over the course of the season. Realistically, I can’t see us advancing any further than last seasons dead centre finish of 12th, but I am renowned for being a pessimist. My heart will go with a top 10 finish, but my head is saying around the 15th mark. This season will be the foundation for the next couple of years I hope and give or take in 12 months time I may have the confidence to throw ourselves in the mix for a top 6 finish.

Hurst has everyone behind him, and after venting my frustration at Mr Evans last August for raising the Season Ticket Prices, I put my money where my mouth was a purchased my first Season Ticket in 8 years for this upcoming season, although the departure of McCarthy was a huge pull factor. Like I astarted this piece, #ANewEra is here at Portman Road, and although it may not be an immediate transformation, I for one am looking forward to it.

Follow on twitter - @_Kieranbleaz

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🗓 FIXTURES | AUGUST

The new season starts this weekend, and more importantly, so does #ANewEra at Town.

As we’ve done in previous seasons we want your points predictions for the month which will feature as part of the @BlueMondayITFC podcast.

Get involved over on twitter - https://twitter.com/ITFC_bible/status/1023959281178214402